Abridean, a Halifax-Nova Scotia-based provider of application provisioning and management services, announced today that AbrideanProvisor 2.0 is now available.
The AbrideanProvisor platform is designed to automate and simplify provisioning hosted applications offered by ASPs, other services providers and enterprises. Based on an XML architecture, AbrideanProvisor is extensible and integrates with other component in the data center.
One of the key features of AbrideanProvisor 2.0 is its capability to use its Provision Anything Framework to support desktop applications that operate in a Citrix environment. Abridean’s Citrix Agent combines file system management, terminal services management and management of Citrix MetaFrame, allowing service providers to take advantage of provisioning technology.
According to Abridean president and CEO Sean Sears, Version 2.0 extends to the Citrix environment a “service provider layer,” which provides more administrative control. The new version is designed to simplify service management for customers who work with the Citrix-based software as well as other applications. “We are able to provision any desktop application within a portfolio,” Sears said.
Sears also said that additional announcements regarding applications agent development are forthcoming. He said that company has moved away from announcing future products, choosing instead to announce when the services are generally available. “We’ll probably have a couple more by the end of the year.”
Provisor 2.0 also includes Abridean Solution Sets, an XML-based framework that incorporates specific service management vendors including provisioning, billing and systems management solutions. The Solution Sets are designed to address the integration challenges of service management infrastructure. For example, the current offering includes Abridean’s provisioning software, Metratech’s billing service and DigitalFuel’s service level agreement (SLA)-management software.
Provisioning and service management technologies are viewed by many analysts as a key to managing hosted applications efficiently and profitably. “Customers fall into two camps,” Sears told ASPnews. “Those who want to wait and see how successful they are and then add provisioning, and the telco types who want everything in place at the beginning.” Pureplay ASPs have been taking the we’ll-add-it-when-we-need-it approach, Sears said.
Microsoft recently chose AbrideanProvisor as a finalist for its Best Use of XML award. In October, ASPnews added Abridean to its list of the Top 20 Infrastructure Providers.
Do you have a comment or question about this article or the ASP industry in general? Speak out in the ASP Discussion Forum.